The next plane for a few of us guys in the chicago area is going to be an A-5 Vigilante. The size is going to be somewhere between 1/6 and 1/7 scale, GI Joe can fly it, about 140" long. We ordered a Trumpeter 1/48 plastic kit, Mark Frankel's plans. and Phil Knuckle's plans. The idea is to take the best of what we find and create the plane. I am still waiting on phil's plans. My friend Vladimir scaled up the vertical stab on the Trumpeter kit close to the size we are going to build. I took some pix to get the ball rolling. There is a ruler next to the stab for reference. A few guy from the 1/4 Scale Panther build are doing the Vigilante and a few are looking at a big Crusader.

Joe,
Glad to see that your tackling this project as the Viggie is one of my favorites jets. My jet partner built, and flew, the Frankel version many years ago, powered by twin glow DFs. It was quite "interesting" to start those Rossi 65s (with a starter belt) and then attach the wing with nylon bolts along with the aileron servo leads. It flew quite well after a very LONG takeoff run.
Turbines or large EDF's are the way to go nowadays. Good luck on this project and keep us posted on the progress.
Rgds,
Art ARRO

As soon as the Phil Knuckles plans arrive we can move foreword. I will keep everyone posted……………I know at the flying field everyone wants to know who is flying over the pits when it happens. Here is something to show you who else is flying over your head..Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!

Mate of mine scratch built his last year for twin edf, it's a big model I will see if I can get some pics up, with the twin EDF setup it just did not have the power he is now going with a Kingtech K100.

Still waiting on the Carstens Phil Knuckles plans. In the mean time here are some pics of the other two plan sheet of the Mark frankel Plans. I am used to building from Ziroli plans which I find pretty detailed. These seem pretty basic. Basic is ok. I have never built a plane exactly to anyones plans. Has anyone come across a drawing with bulkheads of the shape of the actual Vigilante? I.E. something from North American.

Mr Fun AKA John Abrahamian has jumped out ahead with his Crusader project. I am still waiting for my Vigilante plans. Here are some pix. of his project. His Idea is to finish the foam plug and pull a fuse off of it. The plane will be very big. He still needs to carve some missing sections.

The Phil Knuckles plans came today. I am not sure if I am seeing everything. I don't see a wing tip air foil template and I do not see the fuse cross sections that are marked on the fuse plan sheet. I also need the instruction booklet which seems like it would explain many things. Here are a few pix of the plans.

Does anyone know the origin of this image, or where to gets physical copy? What is in the picture is only a portion of what it is. The paper is folded at least a few times and there is more information on it than you can see. I am still looking for Vigilante A 5 fuselage cross section images. This paper unfolded would be my best source so far.

Well here is the agreed on size. The fuse is 138" long from tip of radome to rear of bomb bay fairing. With the nose probe and what the rudder hangs over adds a bunch more length. The cross section locations on the Phil Nuckles plans look very close tp the Russian image that ppljr found in the previous post. I think we will use the Russian bulk heads and shape our own for what is missing. One will need to be positioned just in front of and just to the rear of the landing gear location. those two will also accept the wing plug ins. it will be similar to the way I constructed the 1/4 scale Panther center section. that is Vladimir and a 4' ruler in the pix for reference.

One other thing. The scaled up horizontal stab, in green card stock, from the Trumpeter plastic model kit doesn't jive with the Nuckles plans. The pivot points agree but the TE angle is out of whack. no big deal. Vladimir already started fabricating a plug with the Trumpeter outline so we will use that.